Indiana University Press blog

'Life and a Half' nominated for translation award

Life and a Half, written by Sony Labou Tansi and translated by Alison Dundy, was nominated as one of five of the fiction finalists for the French-American Foundation & Florence Gould Foundation 25th Annual Translation Prize. This award is given to the best translated fiction or non-fiction book from French to English in 2011. The winners will be announced in May at the foundation's annual awards ceremony. For more information, visit the French-American Foundation website. 

'Tasting the Good Life' wins Gourmand Award

Tasting the Good Life, by George Gmelch and Sharon Bohn Gmelch, has won a Gourmand Award in the category of Wine Tourism for the USA division! The book now qualifies for the "Best in the World" competition, with the results being released at the Gourmand Awards ceremony March 6. Learn more about the awards on the Gourmand International website. 

'A Prophetic Peace' author Alick Isaacs attends National Prayer Breakfast at White House

Alick Isaacs, author of A Prophetic Peace attended the 60th National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., today, February 2, capping a season of honors for IU Press books in the field of Jewish studies and their authors.

The awards and honors demonstrate IU Press’s lasting relevance for scholarship, teaching and learning, notably in the area of Jewish Studies, said the Press's director Janet Rabinowitch.

The White House Prayer Breakfast is an interfaith gathering of men and women to discuss political and social issues. President Barack Obama, members of Congress and other dignitaries gathered with leaders from across the country and around the world. Isaacs was invited in recognition of his Talking Peace project, the aim of which is to bring individuals of different views together to share varying understandings of peace. The project is sponsored by Mishkenot Sha'ananim, an international cultural center in Jerusalem.

Isaacs writes that his combat experience in the second Lebanon war provoked him to search for a way of reconciling the belligerence of religion with its messages of peace, challenging deeply held convictions about Judaism, Zionism, war and peace. In his readings of Biblical prophecy and rabbinic law, Isaacs draws on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Buber, among others, to propose an ambitious vision of religiously inspired peace. Rejecting the notion of Jewish theology as partial to war and vengeance, A Prophetic Peace points to the ways in which Judaism can be a path to peace.

In addition to Isaacs’s attendance of the prayer breakfast, recent awards for IU Press books include:

• The Jewish Book Council named Gender and Jewish History, edited by Marion A. Kaplan and Deborah Dash Moore, the winner in the Anthologies and Collections category of the 2011 National Jewish Book Awards. Modern Ladino Culture, Olga Borovaya’s study focusing on the three major forms of Ladino literacy production, was a finalist in the Sephardic Culture category.
• The American Academy for Jewish Research named Law and Truth in Biblical and Rabbinic Literature by Chaya T. Halberstam the winner of the 2010 Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize. The prize is awarded annually to a first-time author of an outstanding book in Jewish studies.
• The American Jewish Historical Society has named three IU Press publications as Essential Readings in American Jewish History for 2010: Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora by Rebecca Kobrin; The Prophetic Minority by Gerald Sorin; and Judaism’s Encounter with American Sports by Jeffrey S. Gurock.

To see a complete list of our Jewish Studies titles, visit our website.

'Gender and Jewish History' wins 2011 National Jewish Book Award

Today the Jewish Book Council announced the winners of its 61st annual National Jewish Book Awards. Two IU Press books are among the winners and finalists. Gender and Jewish History edited by Marion A. Kaplan and Deborah Dash Moore was selected winner of the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Anthologies and Collections. Olga Borovaya's book Modern Ladino Culture was named finalist in the category of Sephardic Culture. The awards will be presented March 14 at 8 p.m. during a gala ceremony held at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. Congratulations to the authors of these books for their contributions to Jewish studies scholarship!

To see a complete list of award winners and finalists, visit the Jewish Book Council's website.

5 IU Press books named Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of 2011

We are pleased to announce that five of our books have been chosen as Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of 2011! This selective list includes just under 10 percent of the 7,000 titles that Choice reviewed in 2011. IU Press honorees are:

African American Actresses
Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East
Jane Campion
Tabloid Journalism in South Africa
West African Narratives of Slavery

For a complete lists of titles, visit Choice Reviews Online.

Henry Glassie wins 2011 Nigerian Studies Association Book Prize

Congratulations to Henry Glassie, who won the 2011 Nigerian Studies Association (NSA) Book Prize for Prince Twins Seven-Seven! The winner was announced at the NSA's annual meeting November 19. 

We are also pleased to report that IUP author Elisha P. Renne was first runner-up for this prize for The Politics of Polio in Northern Nigeria. Read more about this award here. 

Donald Pitzer to receive Hoosier Historian Award

Congratulations to IU Press author Donald Pitzer, who is this year's winner of the Dorothy Riker Hoosier Historian Award! 

Presented by the Indiana Historical Society (IHS), this award is made annually to a historian who has made significant contributions to either the field of historical scholarship or the affairs and activities of the IHS.

Pitzer will receive the award December 5 during the IHS's annual Founders Day Dinner held at The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center. 

Pitzer will also appear at the IHS Holiday Author Fair with his new book, New Harmony Then and Now, at the Indiana History Center December 3.

For more Information on Donald Pitzer and the Hoosier Historian Award, read the IHS press release.

Two IU Press authors receive honorable mentions for ASEEES book prizes

We are pleased to announce that two IU Press authors will receive honorable mention book prizes from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)! ASEEES will give Sarah Phillips's book Disability and Mobile Citizenship in Postsocialist Ukraine an honorable mention for the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies. This prize focuses on outstanding work about Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern Europe with a focus in anthropology, political science, sociology, or geography. 

Bozena Shallcross's book The Holocaust Object in Polish and Polish-Jewish Culture will be presented with an honorable mention for the Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies. This prize celebrates the best book that focuses on on Polish affairs. 

ASEEES will honor the prize winners November 19 during its annual convention in Washington, DC. To learn more about the awards and previous winners, visit the ASEEES website.

Kentucke's Frontiers wins Kentucky Governor's Award

Congratulations to Craig Thompson Friend, whose book Kentucke's Frontiers won the 2011 Kentucky Governor's Award! This award, given every four years, honors the author who made the most significant contribution to Kentucky history during the Governor's term. The Office of the Governor and the Kentucky Historical Society present this award together.

Love in the Time of AIDS wins C. Wright Mills Award

Congratulations to Mark Hunter, whose book Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa has won this year's C. Wright Mills Award! The award, which is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems, is given to the best book in the tradition of Mills that "critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance, brings to the topic a fresh, imaginative perspective, [and] advances social science understanding of the topic," among other criteria. The award was announced August 20 during a banquet dinner at the society’s annual meeting in Las Vegas. Love in the Time of AIDS joins a distinguished list of previous winners, including Patricia Hill Collins and Theda Skocpol.